


and none of us get out alive

by ODed_on_jingle_jangle



Category: Dare Me (TV 2019), Dare Me - Megan Abbott
Genre: Character Study, Codependency, Complicated Relationships, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, Implied Sexual Content, Introspection, Manipulative Relationship, Statutory Rape, Underage Drinking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24162634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ODed_on_jingle_jangle/pseuds/ODed_on_jingle_jangle
Summary: “Oh, Beth.” Addy heaves a sigh and kicks the champagne back like a shot.“You want to talk about it?” Coach asks softly.“If we’re going to talk about Beth, I need more of this.” Addy wiggles the glass in her hand.Coach huffs a laugh and obligingly takes the bottle, her hand slipping from Addy’s thigh. Addy almost wishes she hadn’t asked, because she already misses its weight.
Relationships: Colette French/Addy Hanlon
Comments: 20
Kudos: 54





	and none of us get out alive

**Author's Note:**

> I have other WIPs I need to finish, but this is like...a patchwork of leftovers I cut from the _while your colors bleed_ series. I didn't feel like leaving those docs to just collect digital dust, so I edited the material to make it standalone and now here it is.

“You got us into States,” Addy says, comfortably curled up on Coach’s couch as Coach refills her glass again. “I still can’t believe it. No one’s ever even gotten us to Regionals.” 

They’ve been celebrating with fancy champagne, just the two of them, no squad. No Matt French either, he’d decided to take Caitlin for a visit to his parents for a couple days, since Coach was going to be gone anyway. Addy swills, giddy and giggly with the buzz she’s got going, the liquid fizzing down her throat. She’s probably already had too much, but whatever. This is a time for celebration. This big, fancy ass bottle courtesy of Bert, is for her and Coach alone. She’s going to indulge. 

“It wasn’t just me,” Coach hums, setting the bottle down and scooting a bit closer to Addy. “You made it happen too, Addy. You put in the work and it paid off.” 

Addy rubs her lips together, beaming as Coach idly rests her hand on the outside of her thigh. 

“That was some fight you had with Beth though…” 

“Oh, Beth.” Addy heaves a sigh and kicks the champagne back like a shot. 

“You want to talk about it?” Coach asks softly. 

“If we’re going to talk about Beth, I need more of this.” Addy wiggles the glass in her hand. 

Coach huffs a laugh and obligingly takes the bottle, her hand slipping from Addy’s thigh. Addy almost wishes she hadn’t asked, because she already misses its weight. Coach refills her glass and she takes it by the stem, sipping slowly. 

“So spill,” Coach goes on. “What was that all about?” 

Addy pauses, licks the effervescent sweetness off her lips. She finds her eyes drawn to mesmerizing candy apple red of Coach’s mouth. Travels down the pillar of her elegant neck, the pretty peek of bare collarbone. She takes Addy's glass to fill it up a little more. They have plenty. The bottle is huge.

“She’s in love with me,” Addy admits, swallowing, looking back up into Coach’s eyes.

They glint with interest. 

“How about you, Addy?” she lifts Addy’s glass and holds it out to her. “Are you in love with Beth?” 

Addy takes the offered glass and gulps, and gulps again to quell her stomach from the uncomfortable somersaults the question prompts. The things it dredges up inside that she keeps hidden, nestled away into the deepest chambers of her heart. 

“It’s weird with you,” she blurts. 

Coach’s brows narrow. “I thought we were talking about Beth.” 

“We are,” Addy says, “that’s why it’s weird with you, Coach. I can be more honest with you than anyone, even myself. About Beth, about everything.” 

Those red, red lips part with a lovely breath as Coach leans her head into her hand, opposite hand returning to Addy’s thigh. Closer to the inside this time. Almost right where Addy wants it, a pleasant warmth. 

“That’s an honor,” she murmurs, smiling with an impish dimple. 

“Beth is…a part of me is in love with Beth, yeah, and maybe that part of me will always be there, but…” 

“It’s different,” Coach says. 

“Very.” Addy takes another sip. “Beth wants me more than anything. For me, there’s— there’s things I want more than Beth. I can’t let the part of me that wants her get in the way of those things because if I do, I can’t go after them. If I chose her, I’ll never be able to have them.” 

“It’s like I taught you, isn’t it?” Coach lifts her head, picks some invisible lint from the neckline of Addy’s shirt. “When emotion gets in your way, you need to lock it down. You can’t let anything stand between you and your goals. Feelings aren’t forever, but accomplishments are. Triumph is, trophies are.” 

“Exactly,” Addy agrees, hushed. 

“So what is it that you want, Addy?” 

Addy takes another sip and looks down to Coach’s hand on her thigh. Her neatly clipped fingernails polished a pretty orange. 

“To be my own person,” she declares, the barbed things inside her crawling up her throat. “I want power. I want to make it mine—“ 

“Right,” Colette says, pleased but razor edged. “You have to make things yours, the world isn’t just going to hand it over to you.” 

“Yeah! And I want it to be mine alone. I want to have that power for myself, as my own person. How could I ever have that with Beth?” 

“You couldn’t,” Coach tells her, point-blank. “She’s just too much.” 

“See, you get it.” Addy laughs bitterly and finishes off her glass, holds it out for another refill that Coach immediately obliges. “Or you get it as much as anyone outside of us could. No one could ever really get it though, no one but us.” 

“Think you could explain it?” Coach sets the champagne back down, the ends of her blonde wavelets daintily dusting over her bare shoulder as her sleeve slips down. 

God, Addy must be drooling. 

“It’s clearly very complicated, but maybe you could explain it just a little bit.” 

“Me and Beth…” Addy blinks slowly, head spinning not just from the alcohol, but the cosmic implications of explaining the entity that is she and Beth. The enormity of it, a relationship that is more than a relationship between two people, but an existence unto its own that bleeds and snarls and never sleeps. 

“It’s like Frankenstein,” Addy says, clearing her throat in an attempt to keep the slur out of her voice. “Y’know how Frankenstein is like, a bunch of dead body parts stitched together to be one thing?” 

“Frankenstein is the scientist, actually,” Coach says, teasing almost, voice somehow like glittery snow. 

Addy wants to stick her tongue out and catch the flakes. 

“What you’re taking about is Frankenstein’s monster. The Creature.”

“That’s it then.” Addy takes another drink. “Beth and I are The Creature. The biggest, fucking scariest thing you’ve ever seen, eight feet of rotten flesh sewn together. That’s what we are and it's amazing, but I don’t want it anymore. I’m sick of rotting.” 

Addy downs the rest of her glass and sets it aside. 

“Well, what else _do_ you want, Addy?” Coach scoots closer, their knees brushing, body heat searing through the fabric of their clothes. 

Addy swallows. Who would it kill if she curled her hand around the base of Coach’s head and weaved her fingers through her hair? 

Who would it really kill, if she inched just a bit closer and pressed their lips together? 

(Beth) 

(her mother, probably) 

(that weak part of her that clings to Beth still, that miserable scrap that wants to stay rotten out of some stupid sentiment, some kind of pathetic aversion to the awakening of her own abilities separate from the safe familiarity that is being Frankenstein’s fucking monster) 

Addy surges forward and smashes their lips together so hard it hurts, teeth rattling in her skull. Coach kisses her back just as fiercely, already clawing at Addy’s shirt. They tear at each other and tumble right off the couch. They roll across the carpet in a clumsy tangle, hands snaking, searching, breaths puffing out furiously fast. Her head is muzzy from the alcohol but her mouth is hot and Coach's mouth is hotter. A sunstroke burns between her legs when Coach's teeth snag her lip.

Addy doesn’t like to admit it to herself, but tonight is a night for truth. And the truth is— the truth is, she has imagined this moment a hundred times over. It always took place in Coach’s bedroom, but they never actually make it there. 

**Author's Note:**

> Love is a kind of killing.
> 
> Edit: Fixed typos.


End file.
